


Tally-Ho

by jasmiinitee



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: A lot of talking, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Arranged Marriage, F/M, I guess Loki's the youngest weirdo of their group or something, Sexual Tension, Vaguely victorian hunt ball setting, childhood crushes, first names are the same but some surnames more legit, rekindling an old flame I guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 10:22:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17098814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jasmiinitee/pseuds/jasmiinitee
Summary: Sif was never one to really enjoy these sort of gatherings, none the more when Loki was supposed to play the host, but at least he was amusing to watch as he glid from a guest to another and skillfully avoided befriending anyone despite making everyone think that they had.He had also skillfully avoided her the entire night, no matter how much her fingers had started to itch for his coat lapels. Just to throw the gaudy thing off and strip him down.





	Tally-Ho

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ladylaufeyson1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladylaufeyson1/gifts).



> I took the prompt and ran. Hopefully you like it nonetheless!

He moved among the crowds smoothly and silently, like shadows in the warm light of the stableyard lantern. Sif herself had never liked the cold chill and blue darkness of winter afternoons, she was much more at home in the coastal winds of bright summer days, and the winter meetings up in the moors made her mind heavy. When it got dark at half past five in the evening, it was hard to focus on smiling.  
Somehow he still did it, sparing a polite and bright smile for every guest he had to pass. He was a hardy weed to weather the dreary lands of his father.

And then he vanished into the crowd.

It was less of a real hunt ball of scarlets and ratcatchers, and more of a ball with brandy and vague references to the morning ride only a fraction of the partygoers had attended. The Ashfort hall was a gathering ground for everyone who was anyone in the county, some from even further away. Sif didn’t really like that either, but the steady stream of names and titles and holdings and sales did shed a little light on why the sons of the house were so… off. No one likely grew up with a fully working brain in a house like that. 

She was still in her riding outfit (not a side saddle habit, but trousers). She could have put on the better dress, but her brother hadn’t changed out of his hunt coat and breeches either. They weren’t there to make friends or represent a waning family fortune, because everyone knew they already had both more than enough. They were there to provide the curiosity of the event, and she knew it well enough. The black dandy and his sister, the sporting lad-lady.

“You saw him as he ran?” Sif asked Heimdall. He lifted a brow that spoke words, but took a sip of his drink and said nothing out loud.  
Ashfort’s Loki wasn’t really difficult to notice when he wasn’t trying to hide, but when he really set his mind to it he turned nearly invisible. He had disappeared from the festivities as quickly as he had attracted all attention to begin with.  
“He really isn’t much of a sport if this morning was enough to drive him into hiding,” Sif said conversationally. Heimdall smiled for a heartbeat.  
“No, he certainly isn’t.”  
“But it was a jolly good splash,” Sif said.  
“Indeed,” he said and smiled again. “He really ought to invest in a new horse instead of ruining all of his coats.”  
“But can you imagine him trying out a new horse?” Sif asked, and couldn’t really hold back her laugh anymore. “To hell with the poor seller, he would have to find the Pegasus himself to ever make this lord satisfied.”  
“Unfortunately I can see that happening,” Heimdall chuckled.

“He’s really digging his heels into the earth about this whole matter, don’t you think?” Sif asked a bit more quietly. Heimdall looked to her quietly before turning his golden eyes back to the crowd, resuming his watch.  
“As long as his brother is still away on his grand tour, there’s not much any of us can do but wait,” Heimdall said. Damn Thor and his soft heart - it was the Danish scholarly girl and her father he was really going to visit, everyone knew it, but he was still trying to save everyone else’s feelings by pretending it was a regular adventure across the continent.  
“I know,’ Sif said, “but this is getting a bit insulting already.” It wasn’t like anyone was really that happy about their situation, but Loki skirting around the matter even harder than Thor did wasn’t helping it at all.

/ /

She was there in the crowd again, she and her brother both, staring at him from where the fireplace and the bookshelves covered the far wall of the ballroom. It wasn’t easy trying to be a host and trying to avoid being watched at the same time, but by heavens did he try.  
“I will have to see to… a little mix-up in the hall, just a quick dash, don’t you worry about it. It has been a pleasure, I’ll be right back,” Loki smiled to whoever-it-was and his equally-important partner.  
“Of course, of course. We’d love to ask you about your studies as well -”  
“Yes, lovely, I’m sure you’re aflame with interest,” he said, smiled, and snuck away from in between two wide and flashy skirts. 

He really didn’t intend on returning to their mind-numbingly dull conversation, but saying that out loud wasn’t an option. He hoped that it would have been.  
Even more than that he hoped that he could have just slapped the man to see if that would have shut him up. Perhaps that would have made someone think he’d got drunk enough to retire for the night.

Mother was nowhere to be seen and it made his stomach turn. Trying to handle the whole ball by himself made him feel like a gangly young sheepdog faced with a herd of hundreds, way out of his depth.  
Sif and Heimdall of Bivepont were still staring at him as he made his way from the ballroom.  
He needed a proper drink. He needed to find something to hold in his hands to prevent himself from fiddling with them like a schoolboy. 

If Thor hadn’t thrown away all of his responsibilities on his shoulders for a useless girl like that Professor Selvig’s little foster, they wouldn’t have been in this mess to begin with. He, specifically, would have had way fewer problems had he remained a landless little cosmopolite rather than suddenly becoming an heir to their father's estate.  
The fact that father had left the country as soon as him hosting the hunt ball was agreed upon was telling enough.

Mostly he just really, really didn’t want to talk to Sif.

/ /

When Sif saw Loki again, it was when he was dancing with both of the daughters of the Lovelock upstarts. First in turns, and the red-headed one was climbing all over him in every waltz, even St Bernard’s, and then he twirled both of them around together. At least the blonde knew how to stand on her own feet and didn’t pretend to stumble against him with every step.  
Then he danced with Fandral, and the crowd politely parted and cheered for them. It was already a tradition - when the run-around Ashfort brother got far enough in his drinks, he danced with anyone, and Fandral was gentlemanly enough to accept a dance from any good dancer, no matter what face or body the skill came attached to.

Hogun had joined her and Heimdall and it was hard to tell which one of the three of them was less impressed.  
“How long will it be until Thor returns?” Hogun asked. He had been one of the whippers-in on the hunt with Fandral again, and they both had continued the dark green theme of the beagle coats in their cravats.  
“If he returns,” Sif said, maybe a bit too bitterly.  
“He will, soon I think,” Heimdall said. “But not for long. I imagine it shall be only to announce that he will marry to Denmark instead.”  
Instead of her. Sif sighed. Not that she really harboured any ill feelings towards him - if she was being honest, seeing the picture Thor had made on a walk with his latest fancy had filled her with adoration for the both of them. The overall mess he left for them to fix was just a very unfortunate one.  
“He should not have left,” Hogun said.  
“You’re correct in that,” Sif said and looked at Loki when he and Fandral exchanged a polite handshake and a very improper kiss. His cheeks were flushed a blazing red through his pale skin and his hair was escaping from its place, but somehow he made even that look intentional. He was really getting good at lying.  
“How the world still turns, and we so with it,” Heimdall said, patted Sif on the shoulder and excused himself with a nod to her and Hogun. It was certainly one of his less practical wisdoms and instructions.

Sif was never one to really enjoy these sort of gatherings, none the more when Loki was supposed to play the host, but at least he was amusing to watch as he glid from a guest to another and skillfully avoided befriending anyone despite making everyone think that they had.

He had also skillfully avoided her the entire night, no matter how much her fingers had started to itch for his coat lapels. Just to throw the gaudy thing off and strip him down.  
In the end it seemed like the wait was over, he gave up his futile attempts at escaping her, and walked right up to her.

“Well," he said and smiled politely. "How do you do, dear Sif.” As if they hadn't stared at each other across the room for the entire night.  
“How do you do," she said and smiled back. "You’ve been a busy host tonight, I see.”  
“One must make sacrifices for success, yes. I’m so sorry for not finding you sooner.” He didn't sound sorry at all.  
“Oh, don’t you worry, I’ve enjoyed myself immensely even without your company,” Sif said.  
His look was flat and silent, but the blankness turned into a dry little laugh and he toasted to her half-empty glass with his own.  
“Always glad to hear that my presence is recognisable.”  
“Certainly,” she said.

“Would you like to dance?”  
She could easily see that Loki was taken aback by the question, if only a little, but his festive smile stayed on. He had practised since they last met. It was almost like he’d just been distracted for a moment by how nice the ball was.  
“I would, yes, but I didn’t remember you ever enjoying it that much,” he said and tilted his head softly. “Thought better not to make a fool of myself.”  
“Well, that is true,” she agreed and smiled a little as well. “And I’m not wearing a skirt so that might look embarrassing for the both of us. You sticking a thigh between my legs.”  
“Might well be.”  
“Though you did already stick it between Fandral’s thighs.”  
“That is also true,” Loki said and took a rather large gulp of his whisky. “But he likes dancing whereas you, my dear lady, loathe it.”

They looked at the mingling couples in silence for what felt like a minute and an eternity. His face was hard to read, but not because there was no emotion. Rather there were a little too many fleeting thoughts and feelings, and the moment Sif thought she had caught the trace of one, another had taken its place.

Loki was tricky like that.

“What are you thinking?” he asked her instead, pale eyes slow in turning to her. It was blunt in a way he often wasn’t.  
“Whether or not you finally arrived to court me,” she said truthfully. He nodded along, but didn’t look like he knew any better what to do with the fact that they were expected to marry one day, sooner or later.  
“And what are you thinking?” Sif asked.  
“That I’m positively beyond the amount of alcohol one can drink and still call himself sober enough to court a woman,” he said, and for the first time during the entire night he also sounded a little like it.  
And for a moment he even looked a bit sorry about it. Just an inch more like how she remembered him from their youth, running in the rose gardens and reading together in his father’s library. Sif wondered if Loki still shied away from summer sun like he’d used to - he had always had a tendency to get badly burnt even on the most cloudy days.

“Then perhaps you’ll just have to let me woo you for tonight,” she said and lifted a brow at him.  
The roll of his eyes was surprisingly adorable, the following little quirk of his lips even more so. He was smiling upside-down somehow.  
“Well, if the lady insists,” Loki said. “I wouldn’t be opposed to a… little walk. Or a little moment sitting down in the drawing room.”  
Sif smiled at the sly turn his smirk took.  
“I hope your mother won’t be upset if you disappear, to… get to know me a little better again,” she said.  
“Oh? Well, certainly…” Loki chuckled.  
“Wherever her dearheart might have disappeared? That could be a scandal,” Sif pointed out, and made a show of really considering the proper etiquette in these situations.  
Loki laughed out loud so suddenly that he had to cover his mouth with a thin, wide palm to stop himself. Poor thing, he really had had a drink or two too many.  
Sif smiled at him nonetheless and offered him her arm. The guests weren’t disappearing anywhere for a good while, but they also wouldn’t really miss either of them. Heimdall would have seen their leave from some corner of the ballroom, no matter what trick they would have tried to use to escape unnoticed.

/ /

Sif had the strong, wiry arms and thighs of a greek statue, but the lips and soft skin of a forest nymph or some kind of elf, he was sure of it. Her hands over his cheeks, around the back of his neck and across his shoulders made his heart thump restlessly in his chest. Each new kiss made his head spin.

He wasn’t sure of when he had started to speak after she had first silenced him with her soft, teasing kisses and whispers. Now that she was peeling off his waistcoat, her own coat and riding boots long since forgotten, he didn’t know how to stay quiet anymore.  
“You’ve always been so beautiful, Sif, and now that you’ve grown so handsome you’re twice as lovely,” he told her, and it wasn’t even reaching that far. He did mean it. She pressed a hot kiss against his own thin, dry lips then, and he could have melted in the spot. 

She was so close and warm to touch, and so much as she pressed against him. He couldn’t really see it in the dark, but perhaps her cheeks had flushed as well. Perhaps he was only imagining it to save himself from embarrasment.

“You’re magnificent, you’re lovely,” he said, running his hands over her curves that certainly weren’t a man’s hips, even if she cut an imposing figure in her breeches. She pressed her whole body against him, breasts and stomach and thighs. It was indecent and horrible and he was ruining the night he was supposed to be hosting by disappearing off with Sif. They hadn’t even got further than the large couch of the small sitting room behind his father’s drawing room.  
Was it really about having to enjoy Thor’s scraps if Sif had never snuck off with him like that? Only ever with Loki, to exchange a few clumsy kisses behind the corner on the way to the kitchens.

Slowly he helped her out of her shirt, button by button, revealing even more of that velvet-soft skin of her breasts that hid so much force beneath. She was like a greyhound or a thoroughbred horse, really, with a handsome face and elegant gait, but so much raw strength hidden under the strange, soft beauty.  
“I did love you when we were children, I did,” he whispered. Perhaps he still could, one day. Her hot hands and lips and round breasts were certainly trying to convince him of that possibility.  
“You’ll regret blurting that out tomorrow, Loki,” Sif said, but she didn’t sound angry, and even if she pulled on his hair and dropped a few kisses under his jaw, she didn’t yank or bite his neck.  
He almost wished that she had. He pulled her closer as she reached a hand down the front of his trousers.  
“You’re not going to make me beg for a thing, so I have to think of something to say in the meantime,” he managed. “You’ve surprised me, good huntsman.”  
“Just please be quiet,” she said.  
“Why should I?”  
“Because you’re making me laugh, and I can’t pretend to have you as the unsuspecting victim ensnared by my romantic advances that way,” she whispered right against his ear, shoving him against the backrest of the couch like a ragdoll. He didn’t mind it at all, not when she smiled down at him, thick black hair falling down over her bare shoulders.  
“Of course not, my apologies,” he said.


End file.
